[NRx]

I would take a great deal of what is written in this article with a supersized dose of salt. That said a lot of this does represent the views of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and therein lies a whole lot of trouble.

But FWIW the concerns raised by the Bulgarians, Antioch, Georgia and the Russian churches (and the monks of Mt. Athos along with numerous bishops and monastics throughout the Orthodox world) involve a great deal more than seating arrangements and a local (though rather important) territorial dispute between two of the churches. There are very serious theological and ecclesiological issues being raised. The EP's attempt to treat these concerns with what appears to be studied contempt is disturbing.

And with respect to... “If one or more churches don’t attend, all the decisions made will still hold and be binding for all Orthodox churches.” All I can say is that if this is the EP's position then they are in for a rude shock.

[Talisker]

Unity is dead wrong. The very principle has no just cause. This is a transparent attempt to create a single global religion to be enforced by the decisions of the UN.

And ultimately, the result will look very much like sharia.

[chesley]

OK, the Orthodox church is not my religion, and I know very little about it.

What exactly is this meetin supposed to accomplish??

[cloudmountain]

Whatever happens, I think that it's a good thing for SOME process of unification to start. Usually what the Church starts (Catholic or Orthodox) takes a LONG time to complete and I see that as a good thing as well.

In the Roman Catholic Church the Orthodox may take Holy Communion at a Roman Catholic Mass. The reverse is NOT acceptable. Just a comment.

[SGNA]

As an outsider, I was curious as well.

While I can understand the desire to see that everyone is on the same pages of ESTABLISHED doctrine, as well as the desire for communication and unity, especially in combating global oppressive secular and religious influences, any time the headline of the story mentions Vatican-2, it is as if red lights are flashing, sirens are blaring, and massive asteroid impact is at hand!

The analogy I would make to the secular world is to beware of a NAFTA-EU paradigm, i.e. get one group to merge together then merge the merged groups into a one world religion.

Where is Metropolitan Kyrill coming down on this and has Metropolitan Hillarion made any interesting statements concerning it?

Their sources were pretty astute in smelling something afoot on the Catholic side back in 2005, but I don’t know where they would now come down on the global matter.

Or is the reason for the conference all something merely mundane as non-prosletization in other’s territories, setting up spheres of influence in the Ukraine, etc.?